prayer

A Wee Little Man Grew (Sermon November 3, 2013)

Zacchaeus Tree (Photo credit: KOREphotos)

Scripture: Luke 19:1-10

My family is and has always been extended. I have cousins that are just as close to me as my own brother and sisters, and an uncle who is eleven years older than me. The thing about my uncle is he is ten years younger than my mom, so in many cases he was like an older brother to me, and the fact that my grandparents live only a couple of miles away just intensified the closeness of my extended family because we were always together. I mention this because I remember when my uncle went to college. It was probably the first time I ever thought about what I would do when I got older. My uncle would come home in shiny purple jackets, he was in a band, he drove a Camaro, and he would always spend time with us. He made a tradition in our family, one that I miss since I now live in Kansas City and cannot make it home nearly enough. Every Thanksgiving evening he would load up the car and take all of the kids to see a movie. For those of you that grew up in an urban setting this may not seem like a big deal but I grew up a mile from the middle of nowhere, and it took an hour to get to the nearest movie theater. Every Thanksgiving evening, after we spent the afternoon gorging ourselves with turkey and pie, we would then drive for an hour hearing stories of the great and wondrous city of Manhattan and the amazing Kansas State University.

I loved K-State, because my uncle went to school there. I loved the football, the basketball, and the idea of one day attending that university someday myself. My passion grew as I grew older when my uncle took over the family farm and I began to work for him. As we worked I continued to hear the stories of college life. Then one day my uncle, who would often times leave for a weekend to revisit K-State, invited me to go with him to a Kansas State football game. I was filled with anticipation, I was actually going to go to this place that might as well have been heaven for my young mind, I dressed in my most prized garment, a t-shirt my uncle imported from one of the many store in Aggie Ville, and I was about to get a glimpse of the college life. The game, the stadium, the marching band, the team, and the campus were everything I imagined it could be, and I was hooked. I would forever be a fan of Kansas State University.

To me that was the greatest goal of my life, to one day be a student of that school. It was my only option, and I would not even listen to other opinions I was a K-Stater and that was it. Sure I had heard of other schools, places like Yale, Harvard, or Kansas University but those were not equal to K-State in my mind. There was only one place for me.

I mention this because the enthusiasm of my uncle for the school he chose to attend inspired me to strive for something. I never entertained the possibility of not attending college; it never crossed my mind to just get a job without furthering my education. Going to go to college was set in my mind in Junior High, and from that moment on everything that I did was focused on that singular goal.

If you know me at all you know that the dream of attending Kansas State University did not become a reality in my life. I had to make compromises at first because financially I could not afford a university, and then tragedy struck my family sixteen years ago. When my little sister and brother were in a car accident, which took my sister away. That one event changed everything in my life, for a while I was lost. I questioned everything and I began making choices that were not the best, and life began to change. My dream of going to K-State was just a dream; it urged me to do the best I could. It directed my path to a point. But that dream also distracted me from something. I have often wondered when I first began hearing the call to become a pastor? Through various spiritual exercises that I have participated in I have found that I first began to hear the calls of Christ around the same time the dream of K-State was taking form. But I did not listen. I had such a desire to attend Kansas State University that in all of my striving to make the dream come true I missed the calling of God. I say that the death of my sister caused me to lose direction but in all honesty I would now have to admit that I was running from God.

The good news is that in those mistakes God worked them out for the good. I can hardly see them as mistakes now, because the responsibility of a son at the age of 20 caused me to attend a school closer to home so I could be as good of a dad as possible. Because I attended Fort Hays State University instead of Kansas State, I become involved with a campus ministry, which took me across the ocean and Europe to Ukraine. Because of that trip I began to listen again to the call that had been silenced in the purple haze, which led me to Kansas City with the hopes of attending a seminary here.

Enough about me, but I tell you this because it is the story of my life that has brought me to this place. And in many ways that is what Luke is speaking of when he wrote this passage about Zacchaeus.

For those of us that attended vacation bible school every summer for most of our childhood we cannot read this story without singing the song that goes along with it. And because of that song I have had trouble focusing this week. Every week I read the passage of scripture several times, I spend time praying with the scripture and meditating on it, I read commentaries and various web pages. I get distracted thinking about how great it is to live in a time where we have more access to knowledge than ever before, and then I repeat the cycle again. I go to bed thinking about the passage and dreaming about the passage, but this week I had a little child’s song running through my head and I was not really able to get around it.

I waited, prayed, waited some more, read, and hummed. I realized all of my focus was on the amazing work that Jesus did in the life of Zacchaeus. Do not get me wrong that is a wonderful place to get stuck in study, but that was not what was to be spoken of today. I began to think of Zacchaeus instead. Imagining what was going through his mind that day, imagining what was driving this man. All at once I realized that this is not just a story of Jesus but it is the testimony of this wee little man whose greatest claim to fame was that he got caught climbing a tree as an adult.

It is his testimony written from Jesus’ perspective. I say this because Luke wrote his Gospel not as a witness to the events personally but as a man who listened to the stories of those that were there. He penned these words to give an account to a man named Theophilus who we can only assume wanted to know the truth about who Jesus was. Luke interviewed, investigated, and wrote his account carefully. This story of Zacchaeus was one of those accounts carefully investigated by Luke. Luke very well could have spoken with Zacchaeus and asked him about his tree hugging day. And that interview started by Zacchaeus telling about his past.

Zacchaeus was a tax collector. He was very good at his job and the government made him the chief tax collector, allowing him to amass great wealth. Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector on one of the greatest trade routes of the ancient world. Everything from the east going to Rome came through Jericho. Zacchaeus and those he supervised collected the trade tariffs on all of those goods. You see Palestine in the ancient days was the frontier of the Roman Empire, it was on the eastern edge of western civilization, and to the east was the remnant of the fallen Persian Empire, which was buffered by smaller puppet nations much like Eastern Europe was to the Soviet Union. So Jericho was where the customs office was located. Zacchaeus managed all the trade from east to west.

He also was ridiculed for his size, which is probably what drove him to seek powerful offices outside of the Hebrew culture. He was overlooked, he might have had dreams of being a Pharisee but he did not look the part. So he pursued other options. These two facts about this man were highlighted early in the conversation. But I want to highlight that Zacchaeus was a Jewish man. His name is a Hebrew name meaning pure. Which in their culture was a slap because he chose a profession as a representative of a foreign overlord. He was marginalized, and made the best life for himself that he could, and he was successful at it.

Through all of his success there was something missing. Something drove Zacchaeus to that tree. All the wealth of the world pass before his eyes every day, yet there was something that he still lacked. No one really knew him. He was a great success; he supervised an entire government office, yet not one person really knew him as a Jewish human being. He heard that the rabbi Jesus was passing through the town, and Zacchaeus wanted to see this guy. Why we do not really know, but maybe Zacchaeus like me had some deep call in his life that he had silenced by pursuing his personal dreams and perverted ideas of success. He just wanted to see, He had to see. So he ran ahead of the crowd and climbed into a fig tree.

Let us stop right there. This man was marginalized and ridiculed in his culture. No one liked him and no one even cared to get to know him. His name means pure but everyone considered him as filthy as a man could be. Yet he had a desire to see Jesus. We live in a culture not all that different from the one in the first century. We have religious institutions that are wonderful, but often people fall through the cracks. We live in a time of great spiritual seeking, so much so that there is an entire professional organization devoted to the practice of Spiritual Direction. Books are written constantly about religions, and spirituality. These books are sold in pretty much every retail outlet in our nation. People want to see a reason to believe. They spend vast amounts of money on advisors and literature to help them make sense of the longing they feel but do not understand. Like Zacchaeus our culture is climbing trees to get a glimpse at something that just might help.

Jesus walks right up to the tree and stops. He sees Zacchaeus who has cleverly hidden himself in the foliage. Jesus sees him. And Jesus calls out come down so we can go eat. The rabbi wants to eat with him; Jesus wants to share a meal with this marginalized sinful man. Jesus wants to know Zacchaeus; He wants to take the time to really know what drives him, and what his dreams truly are.

Look at response of Zacchaeus. He jumps from the tree and immediately starts giving away his wealth. By Jesus taking the time to just say, “let’s talk,” the life of this man changes. There was no judgment, no theology, and no list of doctrine, just a simple invitation from one faithful man to a hurting man to grab a bite to eat together.

I began today speaking of my story. My story is not all that different from the story of Zacchaeus’. I am a man that had dreams, had broken dream, and had compromised dreams. I was a man that had a calling but ran from that call with the hopes of gaining something I thought might fulfill my life in a greater way. All my running ended in a place far from where I thought I was going to be. I stand here today because faithful people in my life took time to actually get to know me. It began with my mom who accepted me even when I failed, it continued with a Sunday school teacher that continued to encourage me down a different path knowing full well that my past was not where it should have been. It took me across the world where, and to a little church in Kansas City where a community said, “Just listen to your call.” There are several people that have taken the time to know a formerly broken man; those people pointed me to Jesus who has transformed the brokenness into something better. I never went to Kansas State, but I obtained a dream far better, filled with more color than purple. I still have a special place in my heart for that school but it is no longer they mythical dreamland, but only a stone in the road of my life toward God.

Today I want us to really consider Zacchaeus, let us not laugh at his story but let us instead listen. This small man that climbed a tree some say became a great man of God, one that followed in the footsteps of the Apostles, some have even said that he became an Apostle himself. One ancient tradition dating back to the 3^rd century says that Zacchaeus’ last name is one that Luke wrote about in his second book as Matthias the one that replaced Judas among the twelve. This man who was once unknown by all, just might have become one of those men that went out to change the world and shared the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

As we enter our time of holy expectancy and open worship, I ask how will we treat the Zacchaeuses in our lives? Will we walk up to them in their spiritual seeking and ask them to eat and talk? Will we share with them our story? Or will we push them off to the side and hide them behind the leaves? These are important questions that have great ramifications, because what if that Zacchaeus we meet today will become the Matthias tomorrow? Or what if that Zacchaeus today may not be able to listen tomorrow?

Persistent Prayer (Sermon October 20, 2013)

Scripture: Luke 18: 1-8

Prayer is a very serious and somewhat mysterious thing for most people. We are taught to pray in many ways. Even though there are countless scriptures and books to help us in this area, many of us would when asked would still say that we are not sure how to pray, others of us may be uncomfortable in saying certain things in prayer, while still others feel very uncomfortable praying with others around. How could this important discipline, I would argue the most important discipline in the walking with Christ, be such a difficult subject for Christians?

Jesus I have mentioned several times, over the past few months, provided an example to his followers of a holy lifestyle. He made it his custom to worship, he withdrew to the isolated places to pray, and he would minister to the people around him. This holy rhythm of life is something I hope we all will grab hold of and incorporate in our lives, because with this rhythm we will begin to see how God can work through us.

Jesus made it his custom to worship. This is an area of the holy lifestyle that we can really understand. It is a visible area that is the most visible aspect of the holy lifestyle. The custom of worship is the gathering of the followers of Christ into meetinghouses, or churches where we read scripture, sing hymns and song of praise, and are encouraged to continue in our daily walk. Because this is the most visible aspect of the Christian community it is often seen as the most important. We invite people to join us for worship. The faithful obtain degrees and take classes to improve the worship experience. We invest great sums of money to the building and upkeep of worship spaces and instrumentation. Often we focus so much in this area of the holy lifestyle that we judge the effectiveness of a community of believers by the attendance of these meetings for worship, we judge the quality of the community by the messages presented by the pastors and priests, and the spirit of the worship by the excitement of the music performed. Jesus did not really pay attention to these things. If he was in a community and it was a day for worship his custom was to go, he did not care if it was the biggest worship community or if it had the best of anything, He worshiped.

Worship is important, making the place of worship inviting and accommodating is important. Insuring that the message and encouragement of the leader is as honest and as theologically and biblically sound is important. Putting forth the best efforts possible as we join together in praise is important, but this is not the most important aspect of life with Christ. This is just one small part of the whole. We should not judge a community of believers solely on these things because as Christ shows us throughout his life the most important aspect of worship is that you make it your custom.

The second most visible aspect of the holy lifestyle exemplified by Jesus is ministry. We see the energy of worship within meetinghouses; we also see what is done outside the meetinghouse. Friends historically have not called their Sunday, or first day, morning sessions of worship, worship services. This is because worship and service are two very different things. Worship happens within the community but service happens when one leaves the meeting for worship and enters into the world again. Service, ministry, or living the love of Christ with others, is where God uses us to help redeem the world. Often it is said in the prophetic writings of the Old Testament that justice is what God requires not sacrifice. Most of the Mosaic laws deal in these areas, how do we live life-honoring God with others. Of the ten commandments the majority are focused on the interpersonal relationships with others, just consider it thou shall not steal, kill, commit adultery, bear false witness, covet, and honor your parents each deal with human relationships. According to the teachings of Jesus in his sermon on the mount, to truly live these commands there is more required of us than just not doing them. Jesus goes as far as to say love your enemies and do good to those that do all manner of evil against you. To honor God in service we must practice ministry. We must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the incarcerated, provide hospitality to the travelers, and more. It is not enough to not kill someone, but to protect. Social Justice is not only a good thing for us to pursue but it is our jobs as follower of Christ. We should be doing all that we can to ease suffering in our communities.

Often worship communities can focus on service and neglect worship, or focus so much on worship that they fail to serve. This battle between worship and service has been fought by the faithful since the beginning of faith. This is why the prophets wrote that God desires justice instead of sacrifice, because the faith community was focusing on one end of the spectrum to heavily.

This brings us to the essence of the scripture and topic today; the third aspect of Jesus’ holy lifestyle is prayer. Which again raises the questions of what is prayer and how do we do it. I say prayer is the most important discipline of the Christian life for a reason, because prayer is what connects worship and service. When we pray we take the songs, scripture, and encouragement of the worship service and we withdraw and allow the Spirit of God to help us make those things real in our lives. When we pray we converse with the divine, asking for our needs and listening for the encouragement to move personally. This is why prayer is such a mystery; this is why we struggle with prayer, and why everyone throughout history has struggled with prayer. This is why there are teachings on prayer, and books written on prayer, because communication and relationships are difficult.

Jesus tells a story of a widow that persistently pursues justice from a judge that does not fear God and has no respect for mankind. Just think for a bit about that one statement, this was a parable told to people that lived nearly 2000 years ago, and it is a statement that many of us today identify with. This tells us something very important about prayer. The widow continues to pursue justice even in a world that has no respect for faith or humanity. She pursues justice, even though atheism and selfishness surrounds her. Persistence is important in a life of prayer. Jesus tells us that not only should we pray but we also need to develop a discipline and incorporate a lifestyle where prayer is part of our rhythm. Even if we do not get what we think is required immediately we should continue to pray. Often we stop praying because we do not see results, some lose their faith altogether because they prayed and God did not grant their request. They may quote verses like, “Knock and it will be opened, seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you,” and “everything you ask in my name you will be given.” Yet at times we do not get what we desire. Is this because we do not have enough faith? Did we not pray correctly?

Jesus also teaches us something else about prayer. We must listen. Yes I may be reading into the passage a bit on this point, but come with me because I think it is there. We raise our concerns and we then must wait to listen. Jesus says that the woman went to the judge and for a while he refused, that means that at some point in time the woman stopped talking and began to listen to the other party in the conversation. So many times when we knock on heaven’s door we fail to wait for the door to open. We make a request, expect results without waiting for a reply. What happens if we fail to listen? We often miss something vital. It just might be that there is something deeper that must be dealt with before the initial request can be worked out. The woman allowed the judge to refuse. The request was rejected because the proper form was not brought; it was rejected because a license was not applied for. There could be any number of real world reasons that a particular request would be rejected but if we do not listen we would never know.

The next aspect of prayer that is taught is that prayer moves us. This woman is actively pursuing justice in her case. She raises her concern, the request is rejected, she leaves, and returns again to make a request. Often the answers to our prayers begin with us taking steps. This is where listening is very important. This is the process of discernment. We pray and we wait. Maybe we need more information so we are moved to seek out advice. Again we pray and wait. After doing this we soon realizes that we are several steps closer to that request, that deep-rooted desire in our heart, becoming a reality. We remain persistent. We are moved step by step until we look back to examine our lives and realize we are where we need to be.

Worship, Service, and prayer the holy rhythm exemplified by Christ. Each building the other and each will not stand-alone.  Without worship and the teaching we would not know the mind of God or know how to ask in his name. Without service our worship is just an empty ritual without power.  Both without prayer are lacking spirit and relationship. Worship is the beginning, Prayer allows things to grow, and service maturity. Without prayer service is like a teenager wanting to be seen as an adult, but still acting like a child. Without worship pray is barren. It is that central point of prayer that connects life.

As we prepare for our time of open worship, how we as Friends express the intimate relationship and communion with God. I would like to show a video that was produced by a team of middle school students a few years ago. This video shows how a group of Friends in a healthy rhythm of Christ’s holy lifestyle shows each aspect of Worship, prayer, and service. A video that depicts the life of a few good Quakers one an author and scholar, one a businessman, and one a school administrator as they approach a concern in the world around them. Each in their own lives and in their communities saw an injustice, prayed, and was moved to serve. After the video we will move into open worship and let us reflect on our own rhythm of life. Could we do what these men do? Are we focused too much in one area or another? Or are we seemingly lost? Take this time to knock, ask, seek and find.

Badly Bent (Sermon August 25, 2013)

Scripture: Luke 13:10-17

Our friend Adam drives to the office like he does every morning. Over the past few years he has begun to notice some things that he found quite disturbing. On basically any given morning and afternoon while he drives down the exit ramp toward the coffee shop he sees someone standing there asking for help. At first he was concerned but then as they became familiar he stopped looking. But something changed, the people asking for assistance were showing up in others places as well, and they were not always single individuals but families. He pulled into the coffee shop, and sitting near the edge of the lot was a van, the van was filled completely with boxes and standing outside it was a woman with a couple of kids. They were not begging for money but there was something about the situation that made him think. They were not exactly the stereotypical image of homelessness; the woman walked the children to the corner where they met a school bus. She turned to the face the buildings behind her, and sighed. Adam could see the stress rising as the woman’s jaw tightened. She turned to the van pulled out a folder, locked the doors, and began to walk toward the strip mall.

Adam exited his own car and began to walk to the coffee shop, as he neared the door the woman was walking to the same door. He opened the door and allowed the woman to enter in front of him. She went to the counter and ordered a small plain coffee, and taking a seat at a table with a discarded newspaper. Adam ordered his drink and sat down to enjoy the brief morning ritual of java consumption. He observed the woman making a list of addresses and numbers. She opened her folder reading a paper inside and comparing it to her list. Adam could sense the frustration as the woman read over her resume and realized yet another potential job that her skills would not exactly fit. She groaned and let her head sink into her hands. At that point Adam rose and walked over and asked her if he could barrow a different section of the paper. His approach gave her a bit of a shock and as she jumped her arm spilled her coffee. Adam was embarrassed and asked if he could buy her another cup. She actually allowed him too. From there a conversation developed.

At this point he felt a bit awkward because he was sitting there talking to a stranger in the morning. But she opened up to him. She explained how she had been laid off a few years back, her husband was deployed overseas, and they recently lost their home. She had floated between temporary and part-time jobs but was unable to find something that was full-time and they needed some sort of income to be able to find a place to live. Adam had heard the story, or at least a story similar to it over and over. He had seen it in his community, but this was heartbreaking.  She was trying very hard, doing everything she knew how to do to try to make ends meet while her husband was overseas. She talked about her kids and how proud she was of them. Adam enjoyed talking with her, and he really wanted to help.

It is a sad story. A story that has been told for several years, and one that is never easy to hear. We would like to think that this story is one that is not being told any longer but all too often it is. And often when we hear the story we are left in an awkward place, wondering if there is anything that we could do to help or thanking God that we are not the characters. The economic plight of America is one we hope we can soon stop talking about, but the stress it brings has weighed heavily on everyone’s shoulders. We can often feel overcome by it or we could just unplug and let it pass us by.

I bring it up because I believe this ties into the scene in today’s passage. Jesus goes into a synagogue to teach on the Sabbath, as he is accustomed to doing. In walks a woman who had a spirit that crippled her for eighteen years. She was so bad that it bent her over for years she was unable to straighten ups. There is no mention of anything else. No mention of family, just that she came into the synagogue. We do not even know if she was seeking Jesus out or if she just happened to be there, though I tend to believe that this woman came to this synagogue faithfully for eighteen years.

For eighteen years, a spirit had weighed down this woman. Have you ever thought about what type of spirit would weigh down a person till they were unable to stand upright? There are any numbers of stresses that can cause our shoulders to sag a bit. The passage says that there was a spiritual component binding her as well. Something about the struggle within and without was coming between her ability to freely worship.

Jesus saw her; he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. It is hard to look past the amazing release of the woman’s bound back, but I want us to look a bit deeper than the healing. There is really no indication that this woman came to the place of worship to find Jesus. For eighteen years this woman was silently walking in and out of this place of worship. For eighteen years this woman passed in the shadows quietly carrying a burden. For eighteen years she was an unseen participant, never fully accepted, never fully respected, never really seen.

Jesus saw her. Healing begins when we are seen. This woman was hiding for eighteen years behind a false image of herself, she was carrying a burden that was too personal to share with the community, and it was binding her. She carried this for eighteen years. Slowly it ate away at the vertebrae of her back, slowly as she hid behind the false words saying that all was well in her house. The gravity of the stress too painful to share openly was slowly folding her in half, for eighteen years she was afraid yet longing to be seen. Jesus saw her. He saw the fear that kept her hiding in the shadow. He heard the weeping spirit that was being bound inside. He saw her and was moved to minister.

This caused a controversy in the community. The leader of the synagogue, the equivalent of the senior pastor, began to speak boldly about the law and how it was not right to work on the Sabbath day. He began to preach boldly that people should spend the other six days of the week seeking healing but to keep this seventh day devoted only to God. I speak harshly about the leader of the synagogue because I know the pressure placed upon his shoulders as well. Within his office he wields great power, the power to bind and loosen, the power to encourage and to shame. He holds power, but that power has a price no matter how this man uses the power given to him by God and the community he serves, it threatens to break him. By a word this man could sway the entire community one direction or the other. The leader might begin to think that he is the one that is moving the community, but a swaying community is like the pendulum of a clock it moves one direction but eventually it begins to come back. The leader is not the mover, makes sure that the clock is maintained.

Jesus too responds negatively to the leader. Calling him and all that were riled up by his passionate speech hypocrites! They are hypocrites because they forgot why they were there. They thought that they were force that moved the community, that they were the ones in control, but they too were just swaying one way then the other. They were hypocrites because the synagogue was meant to be a house of worship and prayer, a safe place where people could come before God and their community to seek help and release of the burdens in their lives. Yet for eighteen years these leaders lived and worked within this community and they failed to see this one woman who was bound by a spirit, a spirit that was literally folding her in on herself. For eighteen years this woman walked in and out never finding help but only finding more judgment and condemnation which only bent her down a bit more. These men were hypocrites because they spoke eloquently, yet when it came time to put words into action they failed to see the opportunities to share the love of God. You see it is easy to speak words of faith, but it is totally different to live words of faith.

Jesus says, “Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?” Each of us will do what we need to do to keep our livelihoods. There are aspects of life, there are chores that we must do no matter what day it is. Tending livestock is a chore that must be done. My dad would never work on Sundays; he was very passionate about this. I remember one year during harvest it kept raining. There was so much mud and water in the fields that my dad had to purchase tire for our combine that were used in rice fields. It just kept raining, all week long it rained and then Sunday was a beautifully clear sunny day, and every other farmer in the community went out to cut wheat, but not my dad. My dad taught me to keep the day of worship holy, no matter what. But even my dad would make sure the livestock was cared for on Sundays. We would cut holes in the ice during the winter on Sunday just like every other day. In the summer we would make sure that the windmills were pumping properly so that the livestock would have what they needed. Was my dad a hypocrite? No, because life is sacred. If we are charged with the well-being of any creature, human or animal we must care for it every day.

Jesus says you hypocrites to these men, because they know full well that they would take care of their livestock, just like my father would, yet for eighteen years they let this woman, who had been part of their community, sit in bondage. They made no effort. They did not even see her. Jesus did though. He saw that she was struggling even to stand on her own two feet. He saw that there was emotional, spiritual, and physical pain that the rest of the community overlooked. He saw her and he was compassionate.

She quietly sat in worship for eighteen years, never wanting to be a burden to the community yet the weight of her stress was breaking her, causing her to even question if God actually loved her. She questioned because the very people with the power to help were the ones that withheld the grace that could have easily released her. What was her burden? We may never know, but we can speculate. What are the burdens of anyone in a community? Her burdens are probably the same burdens that each of us carry, we carry them on our shoulder hoping that some would see us and help.

Adam saw a woman living in a van with two kids. He saw her struggle, he saw her frustration, and he engaged her in conversation. Over a simple cup of coffee he listened to her story. What should he do next? There are countless things that he could do to help. He could ask to look at her resume, knowing that she was trying to find a job, he could even offer to help her rewrite her resume. He could offer her a job at his place of employment. He could look at her skills and experience and possibly point her in a different direction if he happened to know of any possibilities. He could at the very least make sure that she knew that someone in the community cared. Every day he came to this same coffee shop. He had never seen her before, but it is clear that she had always been there. They look at the names on the list together and he does one thing, he asks if he can pray with her and lets her know that if she needs to talk that he will be back the next morning.

Adam saw the woman, Jesus saw the woman, when everyone else failed to see. Jesus is not saying that we have to fix the problems of everyone we meet, but he does tell us that we should at least give them something to drink. As we enter into this time of open worship and holy expectancy let us each seek the Spirit of God and ask that our eyes will be open to see the bondage within ourselves and within our community, and ask how we can assist the spirit in releasing the ties so that all can drink from the refreshing springs of Christ.